Life Insurance for HIV Persons – Rates and Must-Know Tips

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Life Insurance for HIV Persons in the Past

Historically, HIV patients had a lot of difficulties in getting life insurance. In fact, the only type of insurance that was available for them was guaranteed issue life insurance, which costs the most and covers the least. The maximum amount people with HIV could get in those cases was $25,000. That type of life insurance for HIV persons typically came with a two-year waiting period, meaning if you passed away within the first two years, the insurance would not pay out.

Luckily the situation has recently changed and one of the Canadian insurers, Manulife, came out with life insurance for people who are HIV-positive. This reflects three things:

Insurers are starting to feel more comfortable with this pre-condition, having collected enough data and being able to manage risk around it.

Overall life expectancy of those who receive antiretroviral treatment went up to 65 years, reflecting progress made in the fight against this disease as per CBC’s article about HIV life insurance.

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Insurers are searching for new customer segments (such as those with pre-conditions) to address with new products. Manulife’s product, for example, has the potential to address 75,000 Canadians who have been tested positively for HIV.

Which Company Offers This New HIV Life Insurance?

The company that started offering this life insurance for HIV patients is Manulife, one of the largest Canadian insures. They offer an individual life insurance policy of up to $2,000,000 for people who are HIV positive. There are two conditions:

You must be aged 30 to 65.

You must meet certain criteria details of which are not yet known, but probably these relate to having a stable condition and be constantly treated via appropriate medication/therapy. Manulife indicates that, in general, they will be looking for very healthy people who have been treated for at least five years.

However, as per Manulife’s Chief Underwriter Karen Cutler – they do not expect a lot of business from this product.

Among others, Canadian Aids Society (CAS) welcomes this product. Gary Lacasse, Executive Director of CAS says, “Up to now, people living with HIV were often prohibited from applying for life insurance coverage. This [Manulife’s HIV insurance product] is definitely the right thing to do, as yet one more element of stigma and discrimination falls by the wayside. We hope that other insurers follow suit.”

What Do Other Insurance Experts Think?

Lorne Marr, a renowned life insurance expert from LSM Insurance, one of the leading online life insurance brokerages, says: “Manulife has shown great vision in becoming the first insurance company to underwrite people with HIV for traditional life insurance.

Previously, options for life insurance for people with HIV were very limited. The only policies available were guaranteed issue policies (no health questions and no medical tests) with very limited face amounts, and few simplified issue policies where there were no medical tests and a short series of health questions. However, both sets of policies had deferred death benefits, meaning the death benefit was limited in the first two policy years.”

How Much Does This New Insurance Cost?

There are no exact numbers available to us yet, but insurance experts assume that it would cost 2x to 3x of a standard life insurance policy. Let’s look at two scenarios:

As you can see Manulife rates are expected to be more competitive than insurance rates of other providers (here example of Humania Insurance). Again, these are estimations – for exact numbers or quite specific insurance policies (e.g. funeral expenses insurance policy) please contact an experienced life insurance professional / broker.